BB Gazette Vol.17 No.4 – The Brigade Executive has awarded the Cross for Heroism to Sergeant William Henry Cheshire (17), 1st Hastings Company, for saving a Boy from drowning at East Parade, Hastings, on 24th June, 1908.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer 8^th August 1908 – Sergeant W. H. Cheshire of the St. Mary-in-the-Castle Company of the Boys’ Brigade has gained a Royal humane society certificate and a prize of 10s. for his courage and humanity in saving the life of Ernest Withers, who was in imminent danger of drowning at East Parade on the 24^th of June.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer 30^th January 1909 – The annual local meeting in connection with the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and the Royal Humane Society was held yesterday (Friday) in the Magistrates’ Room at the Town Hall. … At a quarterly meeting of the Committee held in July Mr Alfred Moon, bowman of the “Charles Arkcoll” life-boat, applied for a reward for William Henry Cheshire … of 9, George-street, Hastings, a shop assistant, aged seventeen years, who risked his life to save Ernest Withers, of 13, West-sttreet, Hastings, aged nine years, a schoolboy, who was in imminent peril of drowning, on the 24^th of June at 7.45 pm, he having fallen into the sea from a stone groyne near the Lifeboat House at East-parade, the depth of water being about ten feet.